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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Rick Tyler is with the pronewt
gingrich winning our super pac, he was n aide to the former
speaker. when mr. gingrich talked tonight about the president as an
entertainer in chief, someone who ought to stop singing and dealing with the
problems of the country, i hear racially coded language there. i hear mr.
gingrich trying to appeal to southern white conservatives who may
be responding to essentially racially biassed coded language about the president
that's designed to call on the african-american achievement in this country. am
i wrong to see it in this country?

It's
bologna.

If you
want to talk about race, the republican party was started by
abraham lincoln . six of the nine planks in the 1856
platform were civil rights platform. if you go back to the
democratic platform, it's a racist platform. we can go down this road.

What about
tonight. can you talk about what happened to the parties after the civil
war , and for reconstruction and through this past century. when mr.
gingrich -- i will go to the naacp and tell them to be dissatisfied
with paychecks. this president is an entertainer in chief. there's a pattern
here of very obviously racially coded language. that has nothing to do with the
parties in the civil war .

Until 1978, the LDS church banned men of African descent from its priesthood,
a position open to nearly all Mormon males and the gateway to sacramental and
leadership roles. The church had also barred black men and women from temple
ceremonies that promised access in the afterlife to the highest heaven.

As he explored joining the church in 1988, Perkins said he asked Mormons near
his Los Angeles home about the racial doctrines. They gently explained that
blacks were the cursed descendants of Cain, the biblical murderer, he
recalls.

“Let’s say you have this powerful witness of God telling you that this church
is truly of him,” said the 48-year-old salesman and video producer. “And then
the people in that church lovingly tell you that you are cursed. How do you
reconcile those two things?”

Newt Gingrich,
facing a double-digit loss to rival Mitt Romney
that some predict will doom his presidential bid, sought to turn the results of
Tuesday's critical Florida primary into a victory, arguing that the contest is
now defined as between himself and the former Massachusetts
governor.

"Florida did something very important coming on top of South
Carolina. It is now clear this will be a two-person race between the
conservative leader Newt Gingrich and the Massachusetts moderate," Gingrich told
a few hundred people in a half-empty ballroom here. "The voters of Florida
really made that clear."

Gingrich's campaign has seen wild gyrations --
the former House speaker was deeply in debt and nearly his entire staff quit
over the summer, but he surged to become a front-runner in Iowa in December
before being pummeled by millions of dollars in attack ads there by Romney and
his supporters. He badly lost Iowa and New Hampshire before picking up a
come-from-behind victory in South Carolina, giving him momentum coming into
Florida. But another barrage of attack ads and two lackluster debate
performances eroded support for Gingrich here in recent days.

Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren (D) criticized Sen. Scott Brown
(R-Mass.) on Tuesday for opposing the "Buffett Rule," saying the issue reveals a
major difference in what they represent as candidates.

"Just last week, Scott Brown said in an interview that he thinks Mitt Romney
and Warren Buffett should get special tax breaks that are not available to most
Americans. I don't think that's fair," Warren said in a new post on Blue Mass Group, a New England independent
political blog.

"This is one of the places where Scott Brown and I see things differently,"
she said.

The "Buffett Rule," named after billionaire William Buffett, would require
people who make more than $1 million to pay at least 30 percent in taxes.
President Barack Obama highlighted the proposal in his State of the Union
address and is likely to hammer away at it in the coming months. The issue will
also take center stage this week in the Senate as Democrats prepare to unveil a bill that would turn the
"Buffett Rule" into law.

First they announced their endorsement of Mitt Romney, then they weighed in on how much
fun it is to fire people, and now they're back to put into perspective how
little money $360,000 is. Speaking fees? More like, chump change.

As America waits with bated breath to see what happens in the Florida
primary, these kids are here to remind everyone that having a president who
isn't as rich as Mitt Romney is the single worst thing that could happen to this
country.

When one student stabbed 12-year-old Ryan Rodriguez in the back with a pencil
and walked away, Ryan didn't have to ask for a reason why. He already knew: his
race, the Connecticut Post reports. The boy's mother, Gail
Rodriguez, told the paper that her son, who is half white and half Puerto Rican,
was often bullied for not being "black enough," and that other students teased
him, calling him things like "stupid white cracker."

The bullying at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in New
Haven, Conn., was more than physical assault. The Post reports that
students would also steal Ryan's belongings and break his binders.

When his
mother complained, however, teachers allegedly said they would have to catch the
students in the act in order to take punitive action.

Monday, January 30, 2012

One
prominent conservative talker is admitting what conservatives are really
thinking.

Llimited
resources versus barack obama who i saw last night wow a huge crowd
in washington at this big dinner. i mean, a bunch of us sitting
next to each other, very prominent conservatives, former bush cabinet
members , we're looking at each other going, i don't know if mitt
romney can beat him.

So
prominent conservatives are scared. now they are doing what they do best when
they're scared. playing ugly politics. here's the head of the republican
national committee , reince priebus.

In a few
months, this is all going to be ancient history and we're going to
talk about our own little captain scatino who is president obama
abandoning the ship here and is more interested in campaigning than doing his
job as president.

Comparing
the president to a man charged with manslaughter? a man charged with this
reckless cruise ship disaster where 17 people died and
16 are still missing. and here's tea party freshman alan
west in florida over the weekend.

Take your
message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency,
take your message of enslaving the entrepreneur will and spirit of the
american people somewhere else. you can take it to europe. you can
take it to the bottom of the sea. you can take it to the north poll, but get the
hell out of the united states of america . yeah, i said
hell.

A 375-year-old French bank has decided to forgive the debts of its poorest
customers, Good.is reports.

The Crédit Municipal de Paris, a Parisian institution that offers small,
low-interest loans against inexpensive valuables, has announced a one-time
cancelation of the debts of some 3,500 customers who owed the bank 150 euros
(about $190) or less. The announcement marks the bank's 375th anniversary.

A PR stunt? Maybe. But that isn't stopping thousands of customers from
celebrating an unexpected windfall.
"It was nice, I have recovered it all," Lina, a young mother, told Europe1. In May, Lina had borrowed 120 euros by pawning
her jewelry.

A 67-year-old woman with a criminal record for theft has been charged with
siphoning $1 million in donations while working in a finance office of the Roman
Catholic Archdiocese of New York, church officials announced Monday (Jan.
30).

The archdiocese said it did not conduct a criminal background check when the
employee, Anita Collins, was hired in 2003. Collins' complex scheme drained
money from an education fund at the same time the church was closing Catholic
schools.

From Maine to Arizona to southern Louisiana, Catholic churches across the
country echoed with scorn for a new federal rule requiring faith-based employers
to include birth control and other reproductive services in their health care
coverage.

Dozens of priests took the rare step of reading letters from the pulpit
urging parishioners to reach out to Washington and oppose the rule, enacted Jan
20.

The rule requires nearly all employers to provide their employees access to
health insurance that covers artificial contraception, sterilization services
and the "morning after" birth control pill.

A woman who said she was
beaten when she tried to record an alleged incident of police brutality last
week plans to set off an investigation through the Houston
Police Department, said one of the activists behind the effort.

Annika Lewis, 26, went to
HPD headquarters Monday to obtain documents that she planned to file with the
department's internal affairs division on Tuesday, activist Deric
Muhammad said.

The decision came as police representatives declined
to respond to specific questions about the alleged incident.

"For this incident to be
investigated they need to file an internal affairs division complaint," HPD
spokesman Victor
Senties said.

Muhammad said the family was in contact with the FBI
about an investigation into excessive use of force.

President Barack Obama is trying to rebuild the American economy, one job at a
time – literally.

The president asked an online town hall questioner Monday to send him her
husband's resume, insisting he wanted to look into why the man remained out of
work despite his background as a semiconductor engineer.

"I meant what I said, if you send me your husband's resume, I'd be interested
in finding out exactly what's happening right there," Obama told the questioner,
Jennifer Wedel of Fort Worth, Texas.

Two bills in the Florida legislature would give parents overarching power to
demand sweeping changes at low-performing schools.

Under the first parent trigger proposal -- House Bill 1191, or the Parent Empowerment Act -- parents
would have the power to fire school staff. A majority of parents could also
petition to have the principal replaced or have a charter school operator take
over the school.

Sophia Stockton, a college junior in Olathe, Kan., got quite a surprise when
she opened the textbook "Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and
Issues," which she recently purchased from Amazon.com, to find a bag of cocaine in between the pages, WPTV reports.

Stockton took the book and bag to the local police station where officers
confirmed her suspicion.
"He put some gloves on and put it in a plastic bag," Stockton told KSCW. "He took it back to test it and like 10
minutes later he came back and said, 'Did you happen to order some cocaine with
your textbook?'"

On Jan. 12 Tennessee State Representative Richard Floyd (R-Chattanooga) said he would "stomp a mudhole" into any transgender woman
he saw attempting to use a women's restroom. That phrase means to sexually and
violently assault someone to the point where they are unable to fight back.

So far, Rep. Floyd's comments have been largely ignored and unchallenged by
the mainstream media. How could something so incredibly outrageous and
disgusting go unreported?

We are living in a world in which transgender people face extremely high
rates of violence and discrimination. Every year I attend the Transgender Day of
Remembrance and hear a new list of names of trans people who have been murdered.
And, sadly, in my workplace, I hear stories of violence and discrimination on a
regular basis.

For more than 50 years, the United States has had an embargo against the
island of Cuba, all because we supposedly hate communism and believe the nation
90 miles from our border should institute democracy.

As the GOP candidates battle it out for votes in Florida’s election on
Tuesday, Cuba has come up in a couple of debates, and nearly all of the
candidates, except for Rep. Ron Paul, have sounded ridiculous trying to defend
what is clearly a failed policy, all in an effort to curry favor among the
Cuban-heavy voters in the state.
Take, for instance, Newt Gingrich.

The former House speaker was his usual fire-breathing self in the
NBC-National Journal debate when he called on the U.S. to authorize a regime
change to get Fidel and Raul Castro out of their positions as leaders of the
country.

“I would suggest to you the policy of the United States should be
aggressively to overthrow the regime and to do everything we can to support
those Cubans who want freedom,” Gingrich said. “You know, Obama is very
infatuated with an Arab Spring. He doesn’t seem to be able to look 90 miles
south of the United States to have a Cuban Spring.

A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to
create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of
his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for
lawmakers.

"There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for
legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the
bill," said Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville), sponsor of the original welfare drug testing bill.

The Supreme Court ruled drug testing for political candidates
unconstitutional in 1997, striking
down a Georgia law. McMillin said he withdrew his bill so he could
reintroduce it on Monday with a lawmaker drug testing provision that would pass
constitutional muster.

Utah police say they caught a hospital worker in the act of sexually
assaulting an unconscious patient.
Cops in Logan say they brought an extremely intoxicated man to the hospital
on Jan. 20, after he'd allegedly urinated and fallen asleep in a stranger's
home. They put him in the care of 46-year-old hospital worker Hal Weston,
according to a police report obtained by The Huffington Post.

The reporting officer said he only left the patient's room for a few minutes,
but when he came back, he allegedly saw Weston performing oral sex on the
blacked-out patient.

"The officer walked in the room and pulled the curtain back slightly," the
report reads. "The officer observed the unconscious man laying on the hospital
bed and the male caregiver performing a sexual act ... The officer summoned
hospital security."

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Everyone wants to create jobs. Candidates and politicians propose a mix of tax
breaks, government assistance, new legislation and so forth. But for Newt
Gingrich, there's a much easier magical formula: just defeat President Barack
Obama.

Gingrich held a large outdoor rally Sunday at the retirement community The
Villages, attracting die-hard supporters, undecided Republicans and members of
the community who simply decided to see what all the commotion was about as they
were walking their dogs or going to lunch.

He laid out a startlingly simple plan to create new jobs, saying it would
happen as soon as Obama is defeated -- as soon as on election night itself.

Former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has been moved into the general
prison population for the first time since his arrest
in a Philadelphia police officer's murder three decades ago.

Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections, told The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper that Abu-Jamal
was moved Friday from the restricted housing unit at the Mahanoy state prison in
Frackville, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Law professor Judith L. Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals,
called it "a very important moment for him, his family and all of his
supporters."

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Officer Daniel
Faulkner. Prosecutors agreed to a life term after a federal appeals court
ordered a new sentencing hearing, citing flawed jury instructions.

Abu-Jamal, a one-time
radio journalist and former Black Panther, garnered worldwide support for his
claims that he was the victim of a racist justice system.

A Philadelphia woman who told police that two black
men kidnapped her -- and was later found to have lied -- was sentenced to eight
years in prison Thursday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bonnie Sweeten, 40, who made headlines two years ago after triggering a
massive search when she called police and said that black men had kidnapped her
and her 9-year-old daughter, will have to pay $1 million in restitution.

"Sweeten stole funds from family members, from the law office where she had
been employed and from the law firm's clients," the prosecutor's office said
after the ruling came down.

Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters for failing
to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group
of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences.

Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched
through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of them
entering a YMCA building.

Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were
swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in.

"I hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt Gingrich for president
of the United States," Cain said, after appearing as a "surprise guest" at a
Lincoln Day Dinner held by the Palm Beach County Republican Party.

"There are several reasons, many reasons, as to why I have reached this
public decision. I had it in my heart and mind a long time ago," Cain said. "I
know that Speaker Gingrich is a patriot, Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold
ideas."

Friday, January 27, 2012

The media has been abuzz for the past two days over the allegedly
confrontational conversation between Arizona Governor Jan
Brewer and President Obama. Some analysts saw dark racial undertones in the way Brewer challenged the
president, and on his show tonight, Bill
Maher waded into this controversy and got into a loud argument with
the panel over whether Brewer was being “disrespectful” towards Obama.

The actions of a Cleveland police officer, Paul Lowrey, are under review
after he allegedly jabbed a flashlight into the abdomen of a handcuffed and
subdued man during a Dec. 30 traffic stop.

According to Cleveland Police Department documents and a dash-cam video
anonymously provided to the Advocate on Wednesday, Jan. 25, Lowrey hit the
handcuffed man in his midsection before yelling at him to “do what he is
[expletive] told to do.”

The use of force is allowed in making arrests, according to Article 15.24 of
the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that “in making an arrest,
all reasonable means are permitted to be used to effect it.” However, the codes
also states that “no greater force shall be resorted to than is necessary to
secure the arrest and detention of the accused.” It’s the gray area between
reasonable and unreasonable use of force, and how it applies to subjects already
in custody, that now has the case under review by police department
administrators and city officials.